This phrase was the beginning of every bedtime story told to me by my father Karlo Fujiwara, a tradition passed down by my grandfather Rinney Fujiwara to my father, from my great-grandfather Fujiwara Sunejiro, and from his father before him (my great-great-grandfather) Fujiwara no Sadajiro.

It’s hard to know where to begin in the telling of ancestral stories. My Ancestors come from Japan, Norway, Scotland, Wales, and Germany, but the stories I am most familiar with and therefore the tale I tell in An American Story is that of my Japanese grandfather, Rinney “Rine” Fujiwara. 

Incidentally, having a middle name is not a Japanese tradition, so let’s begin with the story of how my grandfather received his middle name, as relayed by my father.

When your grandfather came to the US just after the first decade of the 1900’s, his name in Romaji was Fujihara, Rine.  When the immigration officials asked him, “Okay, what is your middle name?” the 13 year old looked at them bewildered and answered, “Fujihara, Rine, is.” “No, no, what is your WHOLE name?” they continued to ask. “What is your family name?” “Ah, Fujihara, famirry namae is.” the young teenager replied. “What is the next name?” they asked.  “Rine” he politely replied. “Next name?” and he printed R-I-N-E and said, “Onry, prease.” So the immigration officials wrote Rinney Rine Fujiwara.

And that’s how my grandfather got his middle name.

Since I am sharing stories about names, here’s one about my own: I am the first-born of three children in my family. Stories passed down from the time prior to my imminent arrival on this earth included speculation by others as to what the color of my skin would be: would I be yellow, olive, white? Would I have stripes? Should they name me Zebra, rhymes with Deborah? (True story, by the way. Ouch. And thankfully THAT name was ruled out.)  My parents came up with the name Rineko, a tribute to my grandfather Rine with the diminutive “–ko” added, essentially naming me “little Rine.”  However, it was decreed that Rineko “sounded too Japanese.” The two parts were inverted and I was named Korine.

There are so many stories that I wish I’d had the foresight to ask someone to tell me.  No one is alive today who knows the answers to my questions, so some parts of my story are fleshed out with details from old letters and other correspondence, through census and draft records, obituaries, family photos, and memories by relatives.  Details differ from sibling to sibling, cousin to cousin, as all the aunts and uncles all had slightly different memories of events.

Through digging around census records and draft registrations, I was able to find the name of the ship my grandfather sailed upon, but family accounts vary as to which port he actually arrived.  San Francisco is one city name that was often repeated, as was Seattle. The Tanba-Maru, the ship on which he emigrated, stopped at both ports.  An older relative, (though accounts differ as to whether it was his father, his uncle, or his brother) emigrated to the US first and worked in restaurants, and my grandfather later followed him to the US and joined forces with him working in restaurants. Eventually they both went their separate ways.

My grandfather traveled west and north, with census records and draft cards showing that he spent some time in Havre, Montana with other Japanese

immigrants, and eventually ended up in New Rockford, North Dakota. In New Rockford he owned a restaurant called The Rockford Cafe, where he met and married the woman who eventually became my grandmother.  She had three children from a previous marriage (Paul, Grace, Clyde), and together they had four more children: Tayro Rinney (Taro Rine), Huygene K (Huzin Kazuo), my father Karlo Dean (Haruo Jin), and Suye Ann (Sizue Zen).